GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul received what his campaign described as a “game changing” endorsement Sunday, as influential South Carolina State Senator Tom Davis, officially gave his support to Paul.

The Senator, a heavyweight fiscal conservative in the South Carolina General Assembly, is extremely well regarded amongst Republicans and Tea Party activists and will undoubtedly bring voters to Ron Paul’s campaign ahead of the “First in the South” primary.

A Public Polling Policy poll [2]of South Carolina voters released Friday shows 30 percent of voters in the state identify themselves as Tea Party members. Although Ron Paul is and always has been at the core of the real Tea Party message, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have, up until now, polled the highest with self proclaimed Tea Partiers In South Carolina.

It is particularly important for Paul to secure Tea Party votes in this week’s primary, given that there are less independent voters in the state than in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“We’re excited and grateful to have Sen. Davis’s endorsement, as it carries tremendous weight in South Carolina,” said Ron Paul 2012 National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton. “Sen. Davis knows a true fiscal conservative when he sees one. He’s uniquely qualified to distinguish between establishment candidate Mitt Romney and the conservative alternative to Romney, Ron Paul.”

Davis recently slammed Romney over his Wall Street connections and support of the banker bailouts:

“He supported interventionist policies in lending, TARP and ethanol subsidies, and he seems to support currency manipulation instead of sound money. Do we really know what we would get with a President Romney?” the Senator wrote in a statement.

Speaking at a standing room only Paul campaign event Sunday, the Senator elaborated on why he was endorsing Paul for president.

“At the end of the day, when I sat down, I realized there were a lot of good people running for this race,” Davis said. “But there’s only one person, there’s only one person speaking to what I believe is the core problem of our country today. The biggest threat to our liberty comes from debt.”

“There is only one candidate that is talking about this problem to the degree, at the scale and with the scope that it needs to be talked about. You can’t nibble around the edges anymore.”

Watch Senator Davis’ endorsement of Ron Paul below:

Reacting to the endorsement, Ron Paul said the Senator would bring “a lot of attention for me.”

“He’s very popular. And he’s going to get a lot of support” Paul said, adding “And he’s a believer.”

Currently vying with Paul for second place in South Carolina, Rick Santorum recently noted how much gravitas an endorsement from Davis would carry. Hoping to secure Davis’ support for his own campaign, Santorum noted “To get an endorsement from someone like Tom Davis is a big deal. It would speak volumes to folks and make them take notice and give us a look.”

Ron Paul is currently surging in South Carolina, with the latest polls showing he has moved into second place with between 16 and 20 percent.

Over the weekend, Paul also raised over $1.3 million in a South Carolina Moneybomb.

“It’s easy to campaign on lower taxes, less spending and fewer regulations – it’s another thing entirely to stand up for these limited government principles when the entire Washington establishment is aligned against you. Yet for more than three decades Ron Paul has cast thousands of lonely votes in our nation’s capital based on the constitutional principles that this country was founded on – and that the Republican Party has promised to protect. Yet while generations of politicians – including far too many Republicans – were losing their way or caving to the status quo, Ron Paul was standing as a Tea Party of one against a towering wave of red ink.

“2012 marks the fifth consecutive year in which the federal government is going to spend well over $1 trillion in money it doesn’t have. Each and every American taxpayer is now on the hook for $135,000 worth of federal debt – and last year’s debt deal adds another $7 trillion in deficit spending over the coming decade. Meanwhile the U.S. Senate hasn’t passed a budget in nearly 1,000 days.

“I’m endorsing Ron Paul because enough is enough. Despite this wave of unprecedented government spending, our unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent for the last 34 months and 146.4 million Americans – one out of every two people in this country – are now classified as poor or low-income.

“Government activism and government intervention clearly hasn’t fixed our economy – which is why the Republican Party needs a nominee who isn’t wedded to that failed approach. We won’t chart a path to fiscal solvency or victory in November by running toward the failed ideas of the left – we will achieve those victories by returning to the principles that the Republican Party once stood for.

“That is why I am proud to endorse Ron Paul for president.

“Ron Paul’s record matches his rhetoric, his fiscal plan matches the fiscal challenges that our nation is facing and his movement represents the taxpayers whose interests have been ignored in the political process for far too long.

“I’m also endorsing him because unlike what the pundits have led you to believe, he is the candidate who gives the Republican Party the best chance to beat Barack Obama in November.

“We have a choice: We can keep electing candidates who talk about change only during political campaigns as a way to get elected, or we can finally elect a candidate who will walk the walk and make that change a reality – restoring our bottom line, our individual liberties and our national pride in the process.”

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net[3], and Prisonplanet.com[1]. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.